When Wanda Tamberly arrives in 1989alpha, there is fog and a cold breeze and:
"Two ravens croaked and flapped from a solitary live oak." (p. 306)
Why ravens? Why two? And why only one live oak? For the significance of ravens, and particularly for a pair of ravens, see here. Odin cannot appear in the Time Patrol series, except in the guise of Carl Farness, but we can appreciate Poul Anderson's reference to two ravens. Is Tamberly's home timeline dead? Or at least dead and inaccessible to her?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! I too immediately thought of Odin and his ravens. And, even if he did not intend anything overtly significant with those ravens, Anderson may well have thought some of his readers would think of Odin.
If inaccessible, Wanda's home timeline would have been dead to her, for all practical purposes.
Ad astra! Sean
A cold breeze and fog are exactly what you're going to get in San Francisco, however. Mark Twain once remarked that the coldest winter he'd ever spent was a summer in San Francisco -- you can get the same temperature ranges in July and January.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And of course Anderson would be very familiar with San Francisco and its suburbs, such as Orinda, from living in or near that city from the early 1950's onward.
Ad astra! Sean
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